Gender Reveal Party

[mybumstinksofbeans]

I've had an invitation (via e-mail) to a "Gender Reveal Party". It's my cousins. I love my cousin dearly but think this is weird.

From what I can gather, the parents know what the sex of the baby is but rather than just telling us, they are having a party and a cake will be cut to reveal the sex. I presume the sponge will be coloured pink for a girl, blue for a boy (dont get me started on this old fashoned gender stereotyping)

To top it off, there is a link to a Babies R Us gift list!!

Before you tell me just to not go, I have to go. We are an incredibly close family, meet up 4 times a year for big family get togethers plus go on holiday twice a year together.

Other than saying I'm ill, there is absolutely no way I could get out of going. I'd be the only person in my family to not turn up.

[RiverTam]

It's the implication that gender is important, and that they're going to stick like glue to gender stereotypes because of course girls like pink not blue rubbish. It's a kind of thoughtless slide into this. We genderise our children from the moment we know their sex, either knowingly, unknowingly or even against our better instincts.

I don't know that this will happen but it seems more likely with parents who go all out with this kind of thing.

[SoupDragon]

It's the implication that gender is important

PMSL. Don't you mean sex? :o

[Pinkheart5915]

I don't get the whole oh it's not right they are going to put them in pink for girls blue for boys, no they aren't the list op has is for neutral clothing. Why is it no longer acceptable to put a girl in some pink or a boy in some blue ?

[LadyStarkOfWinterfell]

No, she means gender
Parents who subscribe to gendering foetuses in utero (pink blue etc) are more likely to rigidly enforce gendered behaviour to the detriment of children who don't conform to stereotypes. And society in general.

[SoupDragon]

My point was that the whole sex/gender whinging is ridiculous because everyone knows what you mean.

Anyway, no one know what the couple are doing yet they are being lambasted for "gender stereotyping".

[LadyStarkOfWinterfell]

No, people really don't know what you mean
Calling this a 'gender reveal' demonstrates how much people don't know what they mean

[PitilessYank]

Is this an American thing? I live in the US and have never heard of this kind of party. It sounds very self-indulgent to me.

[RiverTam]

10 years ago, soup, I would have agreed. These days the conflation between sex and gender, and gender and personality, is having pretty serious effects. To the extent that I'm going to bore on about this in the hope that maybe one person in 100 has a lightbulb moment in the way that MN threads often do, for me at any rate!

[AnnPerkins]

I was quite obsessive about not finding out when I was pregnant. I don't know if I'd call it a 'surprise', but, sappy as it may sound, I think it's a special, unrepeatable moment and I wanted to save it for the end of my labour.

I don't have a view on how other people like to find out, or tell other people. The only one I am genuinely puzzled about is when people say 'We know what we're having but we want it to be a surprise for everyone else.'

I really don't understand that. Don't they realise nobody else cares that much?

[liz70]

"I'd rather the sex of the baby was discovered at the birth - doesn't anyone do that any more?"

I found out at birth with all three DDs. If I'd had fifteen children I'd have waited every time.

Call me a cow, but I'd really struggle to get worked up over the "reveal" if I were at one of these parties. I'd be thinking, like, oh, great, so you're carrying a male/female fetus (or multiple whatever). Now call me when your baby/ies is/are actually born. Then I'll have something to get excited about.

[peachpudding]

Perhaps you could suggest it is wrong to impose a gender on their child. Instead they should have a gender neutral party and wait until the child is old enough to chose its own gender.

[SoupDragon]

No, people really don't know what you mean
Calling this a 'gender reveal' demonstrates how much people don't know what they mean

Only the spectacularly thick don't know what is meant by "gender reveal".

[BeYourselfUnlessUCanBeAUnicorn]

I like baby showers but this sounds like a load of old shite. Seriously, I don't think that many people care what the bloody sex is 'oh its a boy/girl, how lovely' end of discussion.

My sister was told she was having a girl. She just had a nagging feeling though and went for a private scan. It was a boy. Thankfully she didn't have the bollocks that is a gender reveal party, would have been quite embarrassing tbh.

[LadyStarkOfWinterfell]

Or you could raise your child with the belief that gender is meaningless and teach them to be proud of their personality whatever colours and clothes they like to wear, or games they like to play.

[LadyStarkOfWinterfell]

Ffs soup
Yeah they might know what you mean but the word is entirely wrong and means something completely different
It matters

[WorraLiberty]

It sounds like they really need to get over themselves.

But you absolutely do not 'have to go'.

You say you're a close family, so surely you're close enough to say, "Oh that's really not my thing. I'll buy the baby a gift when it's here".

[SoupDragon]

Gender : the quality of being male or female, sex.
Sex: the quality of being male or female.

Perhaps you should write to Collins as they think it means the same as sex too.

[SoupDragon]

Yeah they might know what you mean but the word is entirely wrong and means something completely different

Except actually, it doesn't.

[SoupDragon]

Honestly, I couldn't give a shit.

It's a baby. Sex or gender is irrelevant.

[LadyStarkOfWinterfell]

Gender is not the same as sex
Collins are, in fact, incorrect here

[AndNowItsSeven]

The definition of gender is "the state of being male or female" am assuming the baby will be male or female so it's a gender reveal.

[AndNowItsSeven]

Gender and sex are the same it's just depending on the context you use different terms.

[Sallyingforth]

I don't think the vast majority of people using 'gender' rather than 'sex' have an intention of pressing any sort of insidious agenda. They simply think that 'gender' is more polite that using the S word.
But it does have unintended implications, and for that reason I always correct people when they use the wrong word.
A child in the womb cannot have gender, only sex.

[RiverTam]

(Typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones)

Having the whole definition there helps.

Sex - male/female (with female being of the class of human with potential to produce eggs and bear young. Every human born was born from an egg from a female. Whether that person was masculine or feminine is irrelevant)
Gender - masculine/feminine (definitions of which will vary according to time, culture, religion etc. Not innate or concrete in any way, shape or form)

Muddling these up is when you get bollocks like 'assigned gender at birth' spouted. No, that's not what happens. The attending HCP observes the baby's primary sexual characteristics and notes male or female. Not masculine or feminine, because that would be utter nonsense.

[Shallishanti]

no, they aren't

sex=biological fact, ie XX, uterus, vagina etc vs XY, testes, penis etc

gender= feminine which in our culture is associated with pink and being generally wimpy vs masculine which in our culture is associated with blue and being tough, competent, sporty and destined for a dominant role

hth

so this is why people don't like these parties. What is being revealed is the sex, which unfortunately carries all the gender baggage mentioned above- which the poor foetus is being burdened with before it's even born.